We Saw The Tall
Form Of The Old Polish Patriarch, Venerable In Filth, Stalking
Among The Stinking Ruins Of The Jewish Quarter.
The sly old Rabbi,
in the greasy folding hat, who would not pay to shelter his
children from the storm off Beyrout, greeted us in the bazaars; the
younger Rabbis were furbished up with some smartness.
We met them
on Sunday at the kind of promenade by the walls of the Bethlehem
Gate; they were in company of some red-bearded co-religionists,
smartly attired in Eastern raiment; but their voice was the voice
of the Jews of Berlin, and of course as we passed they were talking
about so many hundert thaler. You may track one of the people, and
be sure to hear mention of that silver calf that they worship.
The English mission has been very unsuccessful with these
religionists. I don't believe the Episcopal apparatus - the
chaplains, and the colleges, and the beadles - have succeeded in
converting a dozen of them; and a sort of martyrdom is in store for
the luckless Hebrews at Jerusalem who shall secede from their
faith. Their old community spurn them with horror; and I heard of
the case of one unfortunate man, whose wife, in spite of her
husband's change of creed, being resolved, like a true woman, to
cleave to him, was spirited away from him in his absence; was kept
in privacy in the city, in spite of all exertions of the mission,
of the consul and the bishop, and the chaplains and the beadles;
was passed away from Jerusalem to Beyrout, and thence to
Constantinople; and from Constantinople was whisked off into the
Russian territories, where she still pines after her husband. May
that unhappy convert find consolation away from her. I could not
help thinking, as my informant, an excellent and accomplished
gentleman of the mission, told me the story, that the Jews had done
only what the Christians do under the same circumstances. The
woman was the daughter of a most learned Rabbi, as I gathered.
Suppose the daughter of the Rabbi of Exeter, or Canterbury, were to
marry a man who turned Jew, would not her Right Reverend Father be
justified in taking her out of the power of a person likely to hurl
her soul to perdition? These poor converts should surely be sent
away to England out of the way of persecution. We could not but
feel a pity for them, as they sat there on their benches in the
church conspicuous; and thought of the scorn and contumely which
attended them without, as they passed, in their European dresses
and shaven beards, among their grisly, scowling, long-robed
countrymen.
As elsewhere in the towns I have seen, the Ghetto of Jerusalem is
pre-eminent in filth. The people are gathered round about the
dung-gate of the city. Of a Friday you may hear their wailings and
lamentations for the lost glories of their city. I think the
Valley of Jehoshaphat is the most ghastly sight I have seen in the
world.
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